


bad ink

by hellalujah



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: Apocalypse, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Disembowelment, Dismemberment, Gore, Happy Ending, Horror, M/M, Monsters, Multi, Nightmares, apocaverse, cackling @ that happy ending tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 02:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9051439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellalujah/pseuds/hellalujah
Summary: Finding where you fit is hard. Finding where you fit when you're one of the last people on Earth is even harder.EDM Secret Santa gift for madlyfluffy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> heeyYYYy this isn't very christmassy at all but here it is!! my secret santa gift for [madlyfluffy](http://madlyfluffy.tumblr.com) and they asked for danger/kav/seb. this is a throwback to my edm roots as they were the first ship i ever wrote in edm rpf. so i hope i did an okay job!!. i hope you like... gore and angst?? i swear there's romance in there under it all, pinky promise.
> 
> as the tags mention there is gore/death/cannibalism/violence/body horror/monsters/etc in this and if that's not your cup of tea possibly you want to avoid this one
> 
> loosely set in [daftinthehead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intravenusann/pseuds/Daftinthehead)'s apocaverse setting with some very obvious liberties taken
> 
> thanks to [caz](http://officialmatzo.tumblr.com) for betaing!
> 
> soundtrack: [blawan - fentanyl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6h7DajAsoE) / [dense & pika - tex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEsThlHPe40) / [chelsea wolfe - feral love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSHfFZF_k4A)

It's not _jealousy_ that he feels for Sebastian and Kavinsky. For whatever is between them.

It's so easy for them, it seems, and maybe it's the ease that Franck is envious of. He's coolly aware that they had some history before everything went to shit. And if the way Sebastian looks at Kavinsky is anything to go by, it's a long history.

He's never heard them use the word ‘love’ but he thinks that's probably what it is.

Franck’s never been in love. It’s not something he really felt like he’d needed before. Not something he really feels like he needs now.

And anyway, it’s not like he’s got a lot of options. It’s a wry thought; an ex-cop, some kind of living corpse.

Danger.

 _love you francky,_ coos Danger. Then it dissolves into laughter that sounds mockingly like a dialup modem and Franck wants to throw up.

\---

Danger doesn’t take its time with him anymore, not really.

It seeps into his nervous system, first. Excruciating, nauseating pain through his whole body as icy darkness coats every nerve ending, buzzes through him electric and burning and agonizing. His bones are next and it's like they're being splintered open, every time.

Franck had broken his leg once, as a child. It's something like that pain only magnified a hundred times. Maybe closer to a thousand times, he thinks as Danger cracks open his teeth and fills them up and pieces them back together.

It floods his muscles next and by then everything is icy numbness and a constant buzz of blinding pain so he’s mostly gone by then.

Never completely gone. But mostly.

He’s still aware when Danger’s in control - sometimes it’s almost like he’s in control too. Like they’re working together, moving together. Hunting together. The hunt is good. There’s not much around these days to eat apart from monsters but they put up a good fight, most of the time.

When Danger lets him go it’s like his body has been packed with sand. Every limb heavy with exhaustion and a strange gummy feeling in his joints. It’s a sated sort of exhaustion, for the most part.

The monsters don’t taste particularly good, Franck can’t help but think as Danger subsides. It’s a messy eater and when Franck licks his lips he can taste what it’s left behind.

The monsters’ blood never tastes like actual blood, somehow, but he can’t place the flavour otherwise.

\---

They let him sit mostly in the passenger side these days.

He'd tried sitting on the centre console for a while and avoiding the shift stick and Kavinsky’s elbow was awkward but manageable. Manageable, until he'd tumbled into Kavinsky’s lap on a particularly sharp turn and they'd nearly veered into a ditch. Not that it would have hurt him, the crash. Him or Kavinsky. But Sebastian is still human. Still soft and so easy to damage.

Franck’s mouth waters and he bites down on his tongue.

He’s half in Sebastian’s lap now. There’s not enough room in the fucking car for all three of them and Franck hates it. It's more frustration than anything, an edge of claustrophobia he'd thought he'd kicked living in his tiny studio apartment.

The fear is irrational and it pisses him off.

It's night and really it's always night these days, but it's a darker shade of sky at the moment and Franck recognizes shades better than he ever has now.

Kavinsky and Sebastian are talking, just loud enough to be heard over the car’s shitty cassette player and the engine’s hum. Franck is fairly sure they're discussing where and when to stop. He doesn't really care. He wishes he were on Sebastian's other side, where he could press his forehead against the cool window and stare into thick blackness.

Danger purrs somewhere next to his eardrum and Franck reflexively jams a finger into his ear like he can scratch the itch of Danger’s voice.

 _hungry,_ it says.

Franck ignores it.

 _hungry,_ whispers Danger, more forceful. Maybe a little petulant. _hungry franck feedfeedfeed_

“No,” Franck mutters and Sebastian's gaze flicks up to look at him in the rear view.

“Pardon?”

Franck shakes his head and tucks his leg up underneath him on the seat, ignores Kavinsky’s scandalized little sound. “Nothing.”

\---

They stop eventually because Sebastian wants to smoke and Franck wants to piss. Kavinsky grumbles. He could drive all day, he says sniffily. All night if he wanted.

Sebastian doesn’t care. If Kavinsky won’t let him smoke in the car, he tells him, they’ll stop when he damn well tells them to.

There’s not much where they’ve pulled over. Some cluster of burned out buildings in between two cities and nothing more. Franck finds a half-collapsed wall, mostly private, to piss behind.

He comes back around the building still zipping up his jeans and then he stops. Stares.

Sebastian and Kavinsky are kissing.

Franck turns back around.

He’s watched before. It doesn’t make him feel good to watch and it’s not jealousy, really it isn’t. He's always been an intruder. Before the end. After. It makes no difference.

He's never belonged.

 _franck belong,_ whispers Danger and Franck can hear the mocking in its buzzing voice. _belong to danger_

“Shut up,” he snaps, dropping into a crouch. “Shut up. I don't belong to you.”

Danger laughs and the sound is like bees or battery acid sizzling.

“I don't belong to anyone,” Franck says. It comes out less firm than he'd have liked it to but at least he'd said it at all.

Danger keeps laughing. It burns the insides of Franck’s ears.

Sebastian and Kavinsky are talking quietly over by the car, Franck knows. He can hear them murmuring over Danger’s hissing. He can feel their eyes on him where’s he squatting in the dirt, scratching idly at ragged patches of yellowed grass. Long dead now.

His knees pop when he straightens out of his crouch.

“Can't do anything about that?” he mutters. Danger laughs again.

 _franck franck franck,_ it whispers. _hungry_

“I fucking know.”

\---

They drive another few hours and then they stop again because the hunger becomes too much and if they don’t stop, Franck tells them, he’s going to eat Kavinsky’s arm.

He's joking, mostly.

Sometimes it’s confusing, the life-smell of Sebastian and the not-quite-living smell of Kavinsky. But Kavinsky’s still got a pulse - slow, but there - and that thudding along next to Sebastian’s is a thunderous drumline in Franck’s ears.

It’s so much worse when he’s hungry.

They pull over and Franck shoves his way over Sebastian, knees him in the thigh and it’s mostly an accident but at least a little on purpose. Sebastian grunts but otherwise says nothing.

It’s cold outside the car. It’s always cold now. Franck’s always cold now.

“I’ll be back,” he says to no one as he’s walking away. The Testarossa roars to life and he doesn't know where they’re going, but he knows what they’re going to do. It's what they always do when he goes off to hunt - he knows. He can smell it on them, heady and musky.

He’s not jealous. And anyway it doesn’t matter because right now he can smell blood in the air, can taste it like it's there on his tongue already and he's not sure if it's his stomach or Danger growling.

There's a building not far off, maybe a church. Very much abandoned, as far as Franck can see, but the smell of food is coming from near there. It smells like it's alive, he realizes. Not undead. Not a monster.

Something - some _one_ \- makes a sound just around the corner of the building.

They’re huddled up against the church wall when Franck turns the corner. There are two of them, both skinny and dirty and afraid. One is sprawled out in the other’s lap, eyes barely cracked open and staring hazily up at the sky.

He’s almost dead. Even if he weren’t so pale, so motionless, Franck can still smell it on him. He can smell the infection and he thinks the boy must have been bitten.

The uninjured boy makes a strangled little noise when he notices they're not alone. Franck can see his hands go tighter where he's clutching at the other boy. “Leave us alone,” he says and Franck drags his gaze up to look at his face. Eyes dark and glittering and terrified. Chapped lips, bared teeth.

He's like a cornered animal protecting its young.

Franck takes a step forward and the boy’s expression shifts from feral to desperate and so human. He clings more tightly to the skinny body in his arms.

“Don’t touch him,” he begs. His voice is so thin, wavering. “Please don’t, please, please don’t touch him.”

Franck blinks, disinterested. Danger’s humming in his abdomen and it’s gotten easier to go impassive while it spreads, to ignore the agony of it painting its way over his nerves and crackling into his bones.

He always expects it to burn. And it does, he supposes, in the way that absolute zero burns, sharp and raw.

“Please,” says the boy, once more. Eyes wide and pleading and dark brown, rich like earth.

Franck wants - _Danger_ wants to eat those eyes.

It’s out of his pores a second later, slipping across his skin and Franck isn’t Franck now, he’s _Danger_ and he’s _hungry_.

The frenzy is always a little beautiful.

Awareness is a loose, fuzzy thing that Franck doesn't try to cling to anymore. It's simpler to let Danger do what it wants to do and if Franck gets something out of it, well, that's a bonus.

And he does get something out of it.

Part of him has learned to enjoy the plunge of claws into flesh - _warm_ flesh this time, not cold and dead like he's used to and that's something new, something ecstatically enjoyable - the squish of organs and crack of bones. It's satisfying, the way his - Danger’s - _their_ claws cut through sinew and cartilage like hot knives through butter. Satisfying, the way bones snap so loudly and nothing is more pleasurable than sucking the marrow from their splintered remains.

Franck can't remember the last time they'd eaten something living, something that wasn't infected and cold already.

Eventually Danger recedes, just a bit. Just enough for Franck to see the body on the ground, or what's left of it anyway. Its chest and stomach are torn open and it's still steaming in the cool air, what organs they hadn’t swallowed down spilling out across the concrete and into the grass. One arm is gone entirely and Franck crunches down absently on what he thinks could be a finger bone.

The head is mostly still intact. The boy is still alive, somehow, shuddering and crying silently. Coughing up frothy saliva flecked through with red.

Reaching out with his remaining arm for the injured boy still lying on the concrete.

He’s staring. Staring at the other boy with those dark, dark eyes. Mouthing something with his bloodstained lips. A name, maybe. ‘I love you’, maybe.

Franck's stomach turns over and Danger seeps back in.

They step over the body delicately and when he drops to the ground a kidney ruptures under his knee. He doesn’t address the tremble in his hands and he doesn’t address why he makes sure the boy is dead before he lets Danger pluck out his eyes.

 _let,_ hisses Danger, half-offense and half-amusement.

“Shut up,” says Franck. He cuts his tongue on Danger’s teeth but he doesn’t wince.

He stands and then sags into a sort of readied stance when the living boy makes a little sound. Turns to look.

The other boy is looking back.

He hasn’t moved, apart from being sprawled on the pavement now instead of in the other boy’s lap. He’s just staring at Franck through slitted eyes, just as dark as the dead one’s. Puppy eyes, Franck thinks a little hysterically.

The boy is crying, he realizes. Tears dripping down over the bridge of his nose, down his temple to stain the concrete.

 _feed,_ asks Danger, or as much as it ever _asks_ anything. It’s not hungry anymore, not really. It will always eat. But it’s not hungry now.

Franck turns away, back to the still steaming corpse. He’s got something stuck between his molars. A bit of lung, maybe.

He tongues at it as he heads back to the road.

\---

He falls asleep the second he climbs back into the Testarossa.

He ends up right in Sebastian’s lap and when Sebastian slips an arm around his waist he can’t bring himself to care. He leans his head against the window and somehow Kavinsky seems to miss every bump, every pothole.

The humming of the engine is a sweet lullaby. Rumbling purr, soothing and animal.

Franck often dreams about eyes but this time it's one pair in particular that stands out.

\---

It's the same dream every time he sleeps.

It's been a couple of days since Franck has fed, since he'd eaten the boy and left the other one there to die.

He's never slept much. He sleeps even less now, with Danger, with everything, but every time he closes his eyes the boy he’d left to die is staring back at him.

He doesn't understand why. He's killed so many monsters. Maybe less humans, but none of them have… _haunted_ him like this. Then again, he's never left anyone alive before. 

\---

On the third day Franck jerks awake from a dream of fluttering dark eyes. Plaintive, piercing stare.

They're in a motel, abandoned this time. Sebastian and Kavinsky had looked skeptical when he'd stalked off to find his own room. Normally they stay in the same room - safety, Kavsinky says, safety in numbers - but Franck can't deal this time. He can't lay there listening to the sounds they make. They never _do_ anything, exactly, not while he's right there. But he can hear them kissing and whispering and even that's too much.

They've invited him to join a handful of times and Franck has always refused. He knows they want him in some capacity. He’s felt Kavinsky’s gaze hot on his face and his body and Sebastian’s arm is always just a little tighter than it needs to be around him - not that it needs to be there at all - when they’re crammed into the passenger seat together.

He wants to join, he admits to himself privately, and Danger laughs. Danger laughs every time and it makes him feel sick and he pushes his own wants away. It’s not like it’s a need. A simple, selfish want that he can continue to ignore.

So that night he'd gone off down the hall, shooting a snarky comment about how they'll finally have some privacy for once over his shoulder, and slammed the door to the room he'd chosen behind him.

He only regrets it a little when he wakes up alone with those damn eyes burned into his retinas.

 _franck not alone,_ Danger whispers and Franck snarls, throws himself out of bed.

“Stop fucking saying that,” he snaps. He paces the room. There’s nothing else to do and he can’t just lay there. He can’t have been asleep for more than an hour and they won’t be leaving for at least another four but he can’t.

He can’t just _sit_ here.

 _hungry,_ purrs Danger. _hungry feed_

“No,” says Franck, less vehement than he wants. “We just ate, you’re fine.” He hesitates. “I’m fine.”

Danger hisses in his head but goes quiet and Franck forces himself to curl up in a hotel room chair, to stare out the window at the omnipresent night. He’s twitchy and restless but he forces himself to stay there until the darkness lightens. Not much lighter, but it’s a bit.

\---

Franck is tired.

He tries to stay awake in the car, where he’s sprawled across Sebastian’s lap again. One leg thrown across his thighs, back of his head pressed against the cool glass. It’s cold enough that he can feel it through his hair and it radiates down the nape of his neck, where his sweater is sagging down the knobs of his spine.

“We should stop,” Franck says, and he doesn’t think he means to say it out loud but he does.

Kavinsky grunts. “You need to piss again?” Sebastian snorts but Franck cuts him off before he can start.

“I want to go back,” he says carefully. It comes out more steady than he’d thought he’d had in him and he’s thankful.

“Back where?” Sebastian asks and he’s already digging in his pockets, fiddling with a stale pack of cigarettes Franck knows is there.

Franck doesn’t respond for a long moment. Lets his eyes fall shut, lets his hands flutter across his stomach to link with each other like he’s relaxed, almost. “The church,” he says eventually. “You know, that one from a few days ago.”

Kavinsky makes a questioning noise but Sebastian hums like he understands. “Shouldn’t take long to get there.”

He starts giving Kavinsky directions and then they’re pulling a sharp u-turn and Franck doesn’t open his eyes except for when he starts to doze and there’s another pair of eyes staring back. 

\---

Sebastian’s right - it doesn’t take long to get there, less than a day because they don’t stop at all. Franck recognizes the collapsed buildings, a particularly old, gnarled tree. So familiar, even though they’ve passed hundred of ruins by now, hundreds of burned-out skeletons of old houses or warehouses or whatever.

He makes a tiny sound when they arrive and Kavinsky stops even though the sound shouldn’t have really been audible or noticeable.

He hesitates for a moment, blinking out at the darkness, before he reaches for the door handle.

“I’ll be back,” he says, and the déja vu is cold and electric.

He shuffles through the dust, long dead shrubs and grass. They’d only been here once and he’s sure of that much but it all seems so familiar. The church looms out of the dim evening and Franck sucks in a little breath, pauses. He’s not so far away, close enough he can see the shattered windows of the building now.

He pauses again when he reaches the church, runs his fingers over rough stucco and breathes slow and deep before he rounds the corner.

The corpse of the boy Franck - Danger - they had killed is there still. Rotting slowly but it doesn’t look like it’s been picked at by monsters or animals and Franck’s more than a little surprised.

He takes a few cautious steps forward, sneakers dragging along the pavement, and then stops when something rounds the far corner.

It’s hunched and hobbling on spindly, too-long legs. Spider-like, almost, so long and skinny and its hands - huge, its hands are _huge_ \- would drag along the ground if it didn’t have them drawn up in front of it. There's a mass of dark, tangled hair on its head, curling and falling around its face.

Franck blinks. He doesn’t think it’s noticed him yet. It’s just taking slow, careful steps toward the gutted body on the ground.

It makes a strange sound. Crooning deep in its throat, mournful and high and almost gentle as it stops at the body. Franck doesn't move. If it's going to eat the rest of the body he's not going to stop it.

It doesn't, though.

It reaches out with one huge hand, still crooning sadly, and brushes the dead boy’s hair out of his eyeless face.

Franck makes a little sound that he doesn't want to decipher - he thinks it’s _want_ but he really doesn’t want to think about that at all - and the thing’s head swings up to look. Franck squares his shoulders, prepares for Danger to take over but -

It's the _eyes._

The creature has the eyes of the boy he'd left to die there, dark and sad and still puppy-like in a chalk white face. Rimmed in red and circled in dark purple like bruises.

Franck stares. Danger is buzzing under his skin but it can't get out, somehow.

The creature opens a vivid red mouth with too many teeth and it _shrieks_ , an awful sound unlike any Franck as ever heard before. Like nails on a chalkboard or a car crash, shattering glass and screeching metal.

It lunges and Danger won't come out.

Franck tumbles backward just as the creature’s arm comes swinging right where his head had been a moment before, rolls across the pavement and into the dirt. It's after him a second later, huge hand - and they're clawed, not quite Danger's scythe-like fingers but ragged yellowing nails - flailing wildly and catching Franck's jacket. It tears and the sound is loud but not as loud as the creature, still screaming, screaming like it'll never stop.

He rolls and scrambles back up and the creature's shrieking increases in pitch and he wonders why and then he's tripping over the corpse on the ground.

He falls again, smacks his chin on the pavement and he's so dizzy for a second. He tastes blood but Danger’s still not there, not frenzied as it normally would be and Franck can't even hear it.

Franck rolls onto his back and the creature is _right there,_ red mouth gaping and those fucking eyes just staring, dark and sad and then its fist is coming down and Franck closes his eyes.

There's a gunshot. And then another.

“Nice shot, Sebos!”

Franck forces his eyes open just in time to see Kavinsky come barreling into the creature, catching it around the middle and tackling it to the ground. It's still shrieking, clawing at Kavinsky and his jacket is tearing and distantly Franck thinks Kav’s going to be _pissed_ about that.

Kavinsky gets a big hand wrapped into the thing’s hair, grips tight and smashes it into the concrete. Once. Twice.

It stops screaming. Franck’s not sure he prefers the silence.

Everything is so quiet for so long and Franck is nauseous. He doesn’t understand it at first, the feeling roiling in his abdomen, and it takes him that long, quiet moment to realize it might be something like guilt. Tepid and bubbling up and up.

Franck sits up. Kavinsky’s still sitting on the creature, trying to clean his hands off. There’s a fang embedded in his fist, long and needle-like. Franck can’t bring himself to look at the ruined remains of the thing’s skull.

He thinks it’s Sebastian who says, “Franck, are you alright?”

He turns with more control than he’d thought he had. His hands are steady when he reaches up to touch his mouth. His fingers come away red and he swallows a mouthful of blood.

And then Danger is surging up, violently, dizzyingly fast. So much quicker than it’s ever been that when he stands he nearly tips back over but he’s more than half not-him at this point and for a second his eyes roll back in something like ecstasy.

“Franck.”

Franck turns and it’s Sebastian, arm hanging relaxed at his side, handgun clutched there as well but Franck - Danger - _they_ sag into a loose ready stance and the déja vu, again, is so crushing and sickening that he wants to let Danger take over entirely but he forces himself to stay lucid, somewhat aware.

“Franck,” Sebastian says again, a little quieter. Gun still clasped loose in his hand. He takes a couple steps forward, non-threatening, posture relaxed and face impassive.

Franck tenses up anyway and hunches. Danger’s got most of him by now, cool and dark over his skin up to his neck and the part of Franck that’s still there tries to imagine what he must look like. Shadow from the neck down, eyes blank white in a mostly human face.

He runs his tongue over his teeth experimentally and they’re not his teeth, they’re Danger’s.

He thinks Sebastian’s saying his name again. Franck. It’s not their name but it’s his name and -

“Just calm down,” Sebastian says and it’s meant to be comforting, some distant part of Franck knows. Some part of him that isn’t Danger.

“ _Calm_ ,” Franck says slowly and his own voice stings his mouth like a chemical burn. “ _I’m calm._ ”

He drops lower into his stance. He’s hungry, he hadn’t been thinking about it but he’s hungry and Sebastian is there with his red mouth and his blue, blue eyes and Franck is _so hungry_.

He takes a step forward. Sebastian’s hand goes a bit tighter around the gun but he doesn’t lift it.

His eyes flick up over his shoulder and Franck turns. Kavinsky is going for him, coming at him as he’d attacked the creature and without thinking about it Franck lashes out with one arm, too long and black as tar and ending in wicked claws.

Kavinsky hits the ground. His leg stays upright for another second, two seconds, before it tips over onto the ground as well.

“Fuck,” says Kavinsky from where he’s laid out in the dirt.

Franck watches him warily though he doesn't think he'll be getting back up for a bit. Danger is still slipping over him, creeping cold shadow fingers up the back of his neck and he tries to push it down. He goes slowly to his knees. His hands are still like scythes.

A hand lands on his arm and he flinches around, nearly takes Sebastian's head off.

“Don't _fucking_ touch me,” Franck hisses, and his voice is still edged with Danger’s acid. He's maybe more Danger than Franck right now.

But Sebastian doesn't back away. Drops fully to his knees in front of Franck.

Franck doesn't move. It's an effort. He stares at Sebastian's red mouth and not for the first time wonders what it would taste like.

He still doesn't move.

“Sebos,” Kavinsky warns from where he's still on the ground a few meters away. Franck doesn't want to take his eyes off of Sebastian but he knows if he did he would see Kavinsky struggling to stand on his one leg.

“You're okay,” says Sebastian. “You're fine.”

When Franck forces himself to actually look into Sebastian's eyes he can see his own eyes, still white and pupiless and glowing reflecting back. Sebastian's eyes are so, so blue.

A hand cups his cheek and Franck doesn't say anything. But Danger recedes a little more, sinks under his skin, sponge-like.

“You're not alone,” says Sebastian and Franck has to bark out a laugh at that.

“No,” he agrees.

 _no_ , says Danger. _never alone_

He sucks in a breath to steady himself. “No,” he says again. “I’m not, I suppose.”

He takes the hand Sebastian offers and lets himself be pulled up off the ground. It’s instinct when he goes to yank his hand away but he pushes against it and when Sebastian tugs him in Franck goes.

He’s so warm. Franck lets himself push his face into Sebastian’s jacket and he tenses but doesn’t pull away when Sebastian’s arms come around him.

\---

They manage to haul Kavinsky back to the car together and he’s grumbling the whole time but it’s good-natured for the most part. Still, it does nothing to calm the guilt still tying Franck’s stomach in knots. It’s not like this is the first time he’s hurt Kavinsky, not even the first time that he’s taken off an entire limb.

Franck thinks about dark eyes and his stomach turns over.

He shuffles his feet awkwardly in the gravel while Sebastian helps Kavinsky to sit half in the Testarossa, arranges the first aid kit on the roof of the car and carefully sets Kavinsky’s severed leg upright on the ground.

“Clean cut, at least,” Sebastian says and Kavinsky laughs, deep from in his belly.

“Thanks for that, Franck,” he calls, peering at Franck over his sunglasses. His eyes burn red and Franck’s still not used to it.

He’s not sure who’s stranger - himself or Kavinsky.

Franck doesn’t respond or react for a moment and then he finds himself coming over, dropping to his knees on the ground next to Sebastian.

“Can I?”

They both stare at him for an uncomfortably long time, until he ducks his head and purses his lips.

“I want to help,” he mumbles. And he does, really. It’s something of a realization. He wants to help, he wants to be… part of whatever this is. Some fucked up family.

He almost smiles at the thought.

Sebastian makes a strange little sound that Franck chooses to ignore and then the first aid box is being set between them.

“Have you ever…?”

Franck shrugs. “Can’t be much different from stitching up clothes.”

Kavinsky snorts and Franck doesn’t look up but he’s somehow sure Sebastian’s smiling when he passes over the suture kit.

\---

“He’s better than you at this, Sebos,” Kavinsky’s saying as they tear down the highway, freshly reattached foot heavy on the gas pedal. “Francky’s gonna be my new permanent nurse.”

Franck scoffs but his face is going warm and he hates to admit but it’s mostly pleased embarrassment. “I didn’t sign up for this. And don’t call me that.”

Sebastian huffs out a little laugh and his hand tightens where it’s resting on Franck’s hip. “A break would be nice,” he says thoughtfully. “I’m tired of playing doctor.”

“But you look so good in the little outfits,” Kavinsky whines and Sebastian laughs again.

Franck turns to press his forehead against the window. He’s smiling, he realizes. A tiny thing but he’s smiling and it feels so unfamiliar on his face.

It’s so easy. The conversation, the prodding and the banter comes so easily and he presses his face more firmly against the glass.

Danger is quiet and Franck doesn’t stop smiling

\---

They stop again at the same motel and Franck is getting tired of déja vu.

It’s late and they’re all tired, or at least he and Sebastian are. He doesn’t think Kavinsky actually gets tired, doesn’t think he sleeps either but Franck’s seen him curl around Sebastian, spoon up behind him and hold him while Sebastian snores quietly.

It’s sweet, in a strange way that kind of makes Franck’s stomach hurt.

In the hallway Kavinsky and Sebastian stop at the same room door they’d stayed in before and Franck keeps walking a few steps before he stops and turns back around.

Kavinsky’s got the door open and he’s half in the room already but they’re both watching Franck. It’s exhausting maintaining eye contact, normally. But it’s not so bad now maybe.

There’s a clock ticking somewhere, slow and slightly off time. Franck blinks and Sebastian lets out a little breath.

“Well,” he says, patting himself down for his pack of cigarettes. “Good night, I suppose.”

He says it like a question. It’s an offer, an invitation. Franck knows. He’s refused the same kind of thing half a dozen times before.

He bites his lip.

“Is it a king-sized bed in there?” he asks, faux-casual.

A slow, pleased smile curls Sebastian’s lips. Kavinsky is less subtle - his grin splits his face and he glances at Franck over his sunglasses.

“Come on in, Francky,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. “Always room for one more.”

Sebastian wheezes out something that is trying to be a laugh and Franck rolls his eyes.

He follows them into the room anyway.


End file.
